Two Apple Stores, Much Waiting!

Two months ago, I was sure of my plans for today: get my second shingles vaccination at Pharmaca in downtown Los Gatos. I wasn’t looking forward to it, but it beat the alternative.

But last week, Apple announced its fall line, including the Apple Watch Series 5 with an always-on display (finally!). I ordered one for pickup this afternoon at the Apple Store in downtown Los Gatos, a two-minute stroll from Pharmaca. Everything was falling into place.

Of course, Apple also announced the new line of iPhones, with cameras that really appealed to me. And last year, I’d bought my iPhone XS Max on the iPhone Upgrade Plan, so upgrading was a no-brainer.

Except that I’d moved my phone from T-Mobile to Google Fi, and upgrading required being a customer of one of the Big 4 carriers. I checked with T-Mobile to see what it would cost to return to them, and the answer was “too much” (the call wasn’t a total loss, though, because we were able to add free Netflix to Diane’s account).

But I had found a second way to upgrade – Apple was offering a decent trade-in for my old phone, so I could buy the new phone outright and use the trade-in to pay off the balance on the Upgrade Plan.

By the time I figured all of this out, the delivery window had slipped into mid-October. Life is like that.

But today, Apple sent me yet another email to encourage me to upgrade. For some reason, I opened it instead of deleting it, and then I clicked the “Find a Store” link and specified the phone I wanted (256GB iPhone 11 Pro in Space Gray, SIM-free).

Much to my surprise, the Apple Park store had phones available for pickup today!

Instead of getting a shingles shot, I spent the afternoon in lines at not one, but two Apple Stores. Picking up the watch in Los Gatos took about 45 minutes; picking up the phone in Cupertino at Apple Park took about 90 minutes.

And when I came home with my trophies, Diane told me that Pharmaca had just called to remind us to get vaccinated.